Found my first BASIC book

[Chris+++]

A few nights ago, I decided to try a quick online search for the first book I'd ever read about BASIC. Every few years, it occurs to me to try figuring out which book it was. I was ten when I read it. It just seemed as if it would be nifty to look at it again, and see how much I might remember about those first pages that comprised my absolutely earliest introduction to anything about the language. For years, I've been able to conjure the colors on the front cover, and even the science-fiction-style typeface of the title. The actual title, however, has eluded me. It's pretty generic.

 

As a kid, I read, probably in Electronic Games, that one could write computer programs by using a common language called BASIC. In the summer of 1982, after a walk across the huge nearby park to the library with my mom's mom (it was our ritual every time I visited her in Buffalo), I decided to see if they had any BASIC books that I could check out -- using her library card, of course.

 

They did have one, and I read it two or three times, from cover to cover, and even started writing out my own text-based games by hand. They were more like branching, Choose Your Own Adventure-style programs than what we would come to know as text adventures, obviously. I even remember using some attributes in my branching adventures, like what we would eventually see in the Fighting Fantasy books.

 

That was over a year before I would get to try out any of my programs. My dad bought me a C64 and 1541 for my birthday in early '84. I actually don't recall whether or not I entered those programs in specific. I must have tried out some of them. I can't imagine why I wouldn't have. Long time ago, though!

 

Anyway, back to '82. Before we returned home to Albuquerque, I brought the book back to the library, of course. I therefore haven't seen it in 40 years.

 

While thinking about it again for no traceable reason earlier this week, It occurred to me that the name of the book might be Beginning BASIC, even though I've thought for years that it might be called something even more ordinary, like BASIC Programming. This was my brain filling-in the actual book title with something just as simple as it turned out to be. Coming up with nothing, I said, "Hell with it," and just tried searching for 1982 COMPUTER BOOK WITH A RED, YELLOW AND GOLD COVER, PLUS SCIENCE FICTION-STYLE LETTERING ON THE FRONT. (I use startpage.com, an allegedly privacy-protecting alternative to the evil Googles.)

 

I searched for "Images" in specific, so I would be able to browse through a bunch of book covers instead of clicking on each found URL individually. I waded through the first few rows of results, expecting absolutely nothing. But then, my mouth fell open and I said out loud, "HOLY SHIT!! THAT'S IT!!"

 

 

 

 

 

My memory had the title a bit wrong, but it's still pretty simple and straightforward. There's even something of a double meaning in it, I guess. I found a cheap copy on a website that I'd never heard of (Abe Books). It was four bucks, plus another four for shipping. Even if it's in a slightly battered library condition, well, hell, so was the one I read 40 years ago!

 

It arrived rather quickly. The first thing that surprised me was how thin it is: about 50 pages. But it's been quite a gas to see those first inklings I ever read that certain commands exist, like PRINT and GOTO, and that the language is structured on what are called "line numbers."

 

I just thought you guys might get a kick out of that, and possibly even have similar re-discoveries.

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Chris+++

[Mr SQL]

Fantastic story about BASIC!  

That looks like a very motivational book, is it available as a PDF? 

 

BASIC on home computers brought the Dartmouth experiment to a younger generation with a much wider audience, awesome story about the inspiration from learning BASIC to write Adventure games too! 

 

Interactive Text Adventures enjoyed wide popularity during the home computer BASIC era that faded in favor of simpler graphic video games that don't require reading.

 

This researcher has a good analysis on dumbing down Colossal Cave:

   

[Mr SQL]

22 hours ago, Chris+++ said:

They did have one, and I read it two or three times, from cover to cover, and even started writing out my own text-based games by hand. They were more like branching, Choose Your Own Adventure-style programs than what we would come to know as text adventures, obviously. I even remember using some attributes in my branching adventures, like what we would eventually see in the Fighting Fantasy books.

Another Interesting connection, Text Adventure games feature a natural language interface with a familiar lexicon much like the idea behind BASIC. No doubt Scott Adams and the author of Zork could write an excellent BASIC and Bill Gates and Paul Allen could write most excellent adventures.   

 

[Chris+++]

Thanks! It's interesting that you say that, as it is quite a motivationally written book -- the author states that her intent is to make computer programming seem less daunting to young kids, and she even asked her 11-year-old daughter for feedback about how understandably the book was written. I've looked everywhere I can think of, and unfortunately, I can't find a PDF of it. Archive.org certainly doesn't have one, which is rare.

 

Good point about ZIL (and its latter-day equivalent, Inform, which I've used) being linguistically based, like BASIC. I certainly appreciate the link to the film about the Crowther & Woods classic -- I'm looking forward to watching it! Even Robinett was heavily influenced by Advent/Colossal Cave.

 

[Mr SQL]

45 minutes ago, Chris+++ said:

Thanks! It's interesting that you say that, as it is quite a motivationally written book -- the author states that her intent is to make computer programming seem less daunting to young kids, and she even asked her 11-year-old daughter for feedback about how understandably the book was written. I've looked everywhere I can think of, and unfortunately, I can't find a PDF of it. Archive.org certainly doesn't have one, which is rare.

 

Good point about ZIL (and its latter-day equivalent, Inform, which I've used) being linguistically based, like BASIC. I certainly appreciate the link to the film about the Crowther & Woods classic -- I'm looking forward to watching it! Even Robinett was heavily influenced by Advent/Colossal Cave.

 

Very cool I will try to pick up a hard copy on ebay!

 

Yes and interesting that Robinett was inspired to go on to write a minimalist BASIC. 

 

I bet his work abstracting the text interface for Adventure inspired the surprisingly advanced GUI on his BASIC. 

 

[Chris+++]

 

Your profile photo (Flynn) reminds me that there were two major, absolutely brain-consuming entities that inspired me to want to learn programming in the first place: the VCS game Adventure and the magnificent movie Tron.

 

 

[DavidD]

Abebooks is interesting.  It's basically a used book aggregator -- lots of individual bookstores list their used titles on the site for online sale, allowing a single website/point of purchase.  I've used it for books for my classroom, and it works well... you can get almost anything on it.